Page 24 of Life, Love, and Other Messes

“The blue house.”

I nodded, wondering how she knew that. I supposed if she had walked past, Ollie had probably barked at her. “Or, you know, if you just want to chat.”

That smile came back on her face and I knew I’d said too much. “Thanks. I might. I should probably get back to work.”

“And we should continue on our merry way. C’mon, bud.”

Ollie hauled himself up like he was twice his age, but I cranked into high gear as Lisa went back inside. Could I have embarrassed myself any worse? I hadn’t told her I was glad she was staying so I could continue to crush on her or anything. By the time we got home, I’d broken a sweat and Ollie was looking at me like I was trying to kill him.

I hung up Ollie’s leash and harness, and he went to slurp at his water for a long time as if to rub it in. To make matters worse for him, I pulled out salad makings for dinner, so he went off to the other room, disgusted. He didn’t care for salad.

As I ate, I scrolled through what I’d written the day before. It had been a pretty prolific day, but I realized right away that most of it was shit. I pushed away my laptop for a while and flipped the pages of notes I’d taken when I’d interviewed the county coroner in my parents’ town. How could I accurately describe multiple contusions when my vocabulary was that of a second grader? Fuck.

About three hours later, I was staring at my screen, moving the cursor back and forth over what was left of the text when the doorbell rang. Ollie went from a dead sleep to barking maniacally. I assessed what I was wearing: crappy clothes, but I hadn’t taken off my bra or anything. Good enough to see what the neighbor kid was selling this time.

To my complete shock, Lisa Sutherland was standing a few paces down the walk, arms crossed protectively. “Hi.”

My palms went wet. “Hi.”

“You probably didn’t mean tonight.”

“No, no, it’s absolutely fine.” I grabbed Ollie by the collar and stepped out of the way so she could come in. “Ollie, hush. You know Lisa.”

“Are you busy?”

“Not at all. Have a seat.”

Lisa sat gingerly on the sofa. Fortunately, that put her at a good level to pet Ollie, and he stopped barking. “Really, I’ll go if…”

I turned around, feeling disoriented. I wished I was wearing my clothes from work like I had been when I walked past her house before. I hoped my hair looked okay. “Just a sec.” I went to my laptop and hit save, as if there was anything worth keeping. “Please stay. What’s up?”

She looked away. “Everything was fine, everything was fine, then Corey and Steve left and it got kind of quiet in there.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” I tried to make it sound like I had conversations with hot about-to-be-divorced women I hardly knew every day. “Honestly, this came as a total shock to me. You guys seem to get along.”

“We do. I mean, there’s not a ton of animosity.”

“But it just isn’t working?”

“Something like that. Before I forget.” She reached behind her and shyly handed me a worn copy of Ashes to Ashes. “Would you sign this? It’s my favorite one.”

I stared, dumbfounded. She’d been so tucked into herself that I hadn’t even seen that she had the book with her. My stomach pitched a little, just like every time someone asked for my autograph. “Of course.” I went to grab a pen. “I had no idea you…” I knew I was babbling, so I let the sentence trail off while I left the room.

Now came the hard part. I turned to the first page, to the clean white emptiness. What the fuck should I write? I started with her name, to make it look like I knew what I was doing, but after that, the wheels in my brain spun. Everything either sounded dumb or suggestive. Ollie and I love visiting you in your beautiful front lawn, I finally wrote. She was in my house now, and she’d read my book. She’d read more than one, since she said this was her favorite. Looking forward to many more years of friendship. Hoping that wasn’t too forward, I scribbled my name, skipping anything like love or the half-assed heart I added for most of my friends. I finally handed it back. “It’s my favorite too.”

She set it on the arm of the sofa without reading the inscription. “You’re probably so used to that, but I think it’s cool.”

“It still freaks me out after all this time. How did you know?”

“I’d been reading your books for years…Like before we even moved in. I was looking to see if I’d missed any of them and googled you and was like, hey…”

“That’s the weirdo from down the street with the strikingly handsome dog.”

“That’s exactly what I thought, except for the weirdo part. Next, you’re going to ask me why I’m reading lesbian novels.”

That was exactly what I wanted to know. This was a mystery instead of a romance, though, so I shrugged. “A lot of my readers are straight.”

“Well, I’m not.”